


cpr

by godless



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, jon grows up in kl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 03:01:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28753305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/godless/pseuds/godless
Summary: “You’ve heard, then.”“Heard about what?”“Sansa Stark,” Rhaenys answers carefully, leaning back against her chair with grace as if awaiting a show. Jon stiffens, his fingers tightening the grip on his poor teacup. It’s pathetic, how his blood turns into lead at the mere mention of her name. Sansa Stark: red hair, soft skin, ruthless gaze. He dreads the next words, no, he waits for it, painfully, ruefully, and the lead in his veins snakes into his stomach, twisting it viciously.“She’s engaged to be married,” she pauses. “To Harry Hardyng.”
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 41
Kudos: 163





	cpr

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by this is how you lose her by junot diaz

This is how you lose her. You’re too late. You’re a coward. You know nothing. You shuffle between the tiles of self-loathing and uncertainty, too panic-stricken over an abrupt development of an intense sentiment you’ve never felt before, not with anyone else, not before her, and you try to give her the world, but turns out she doesn’t need it. 

**———————**

The first Saturdays of every month are reserved for tea with Rhaenys. Sometimes Aegon joins them, other times he is too busy with work — diplomatic affairs, as Aegon would say in his pompous voice. He is the heir, after all. Jon is the spare, the polar opposite of Aegon, and in hushed tones of guests in evening parties, the bastard of the family. When they were children, Rhaenys heard Joffrey say it, the insult ugly in his tongue, and she dumped tea all over his precious, expensive shirt. Joffrey, the little shit, ran off crying to his mother and Rhaenys’ stopped inviting him over for social visits. Jon adores her infinitely just for that. 

Rhaenys is dressed impeccably as always, and she eyes Jon’s wrinkled black shirt in obvious disdain. He ignores it and sits across from her, grabbing a biscuit from the array of pastries on the table. The garden in the Red Keep is Rhaenys’ masterpiece. The birds chirp, the sun’s beam is atrocious. It’s a beautiful day.

“You’re late,” she says in her big sister tone. He only stuffs his mouth with another biscuit. 

“Slept in,” Jon mutters.

“It’s two in the afternoon.”

“Had a long night.”

She hums, staring at him in suspicion. He crosses his leg and sips on his tea, used to the way she always knows something he doesn't. It’s always been like that, his whole life. You know nothing, Jon Snow. 

“What?” He finally gives in. 

“You’ve heard, then.”

“Heard about what?” 

“Sansa Stark,” Rhaenys answers carefully, leaning back against her chair with grace as if awaiting a show. Jon stiffens, his fingers tightening the grip on his poor teacup. It’s pathetic, how his blood turns into lead at the mere mention of her name. Sansa Stark: red hair, soft skin, ruthless gaze. He dreads the next words, no, he waits for it, painfully, ruefully, and the lead in his veins snakes into his stomach, twisting it viciously. 

“She’s engaged to be married,” she pauses. “To Harry Hardyng.”

He blinks, taking in the news with the most indifference that he could muster. There’s blood rushing into his ears, bile gathering at his throat. He feels nauseous, one part because of his hangover, the other because of his sister’s idle tea gossip. The porcelain of his teacup is imported from Essos. Fine craftsmanship, it would be a shame were he to smash it against the wall, watch it chip into pieces.

His sister only raises a perfectly arched eyebrow, as if expecting him to do just that. Jon doesn’t give her the satisfaction. Targaryens always had their share of anger problems, but he is only just half a dragon, isn’t he? 

Jon swallows, and the bile goes back down, down, down. It stews inside of him, alone in its bitterness. “Good for her,” he says. 

**———————**

  
  


The first time you meet her, you are eight and she is five. You don’t like the north, at first. How could you, with its perpetually unforgiving cold, it’s bland grey walls, compared to the warmth of the southern skies? But your mother dragged you up there for a visit and you watch your mother hug Uncle Ned and he musses your brown hair, saying  _ oh, Lyanna, he’s a Stark through and through, isn’t he?  _ And your mother proudly beams and says  _ of course he is. That’s my little pup.  _ And you roll your eyes and your gaze finds, finally, two kids who appear to be the same age as you. They have red hair and blue eyes and look at you curiously. The girl’s name is Sansa, and she curtsies to your mother like a perfect little lady, and when she smiles at you, her smile is warmer than the south, than the entire sun. 

You decide that Winterfell isn’t so bad, after all.

**———————**

He flies back to the North, for some unfathomable reason. He hasn’t been there for nearly a year, not since he immersed himself into doing Rhaegar’s bidding. Working for the company is time-consuming at best and soul-sucking at its worst. He pulls up his phone, and does exactly what he has been refraining himself from doing for the past few months: he types in the name  _ sansa stark _ on the search bar of the instagram app, and there it is. 

Thin, long fingers — the hand of a pianist, the unblemished skin of a lady, of a princess. At her fourth finger sits a diamond ring, large and gaudy. Against the lighting, the stone glints. The caption reads:  _ the love of my life just proposed to me. ecstatic beyond belief!  _ He scoffs at that, he knows it was all for show. High society girls like her all keep up a glamorous facade along with their apparent perfect life.  _ The love of my life? How ridiculous. _ He stares at the photo, and he remembers how those fingers taste, how they feel encircling his cock, her fingernails digging red crescent shapes at his back, and he feels sick at the stomach at the thought of Hardyng knowing all those things, too. 

(What is he even doing, flying all the way there? What does he even hope to achieve?)

He pretends he doesn’t know the answers to that. 

**———————**

He drives past the grey walls of Winterfell exactly twice before stopping himself from encircling back towards the castle again like a fool. That’s who he is. Jon Snow: cynical, insecure, impulsive, and most of all, a fool. He goes back to his apartment in Wintertown instead, an impressive gift from his shit of a father,  _ reparations _ , Jon used to call it. And then his restlessness brings him to The Night's Watch, a bar he and Robb used to sneak into as teenagers whenever he visited Winterfell during summers. 

Theon is the last person Jon expects to see standing at the bartender spot, a towel on his shoulder, another one at his hand wiping a glass clean. Jon nods at Theon, who raises his eyebrows in acknowledgment and tuts, “Look who decided to show his face. I didn’t know you were in the North.”

“Just landed, actually,” Jon says. Theon hands him a whiskey on the rocks without a word, and Jon swirls it at his hand, watching the condensation at the bottom of the glass. 

“Well. The Starks would be thrilled to know you’re here,” Theon says. 

“Yeah. I suppose.” He and Theon have never been that close, and there’s no point for conversation now. 

**———————**

This is how you lose her. You wake up one day and there’s a wedding invitation slipped at the bottom of your door. Theon must have told them you’re back in town. The paper is thick, its color ivory, and it smells like some sort of perfume. The font is a sickening cursive, the letters S looping like a spiral. Sansa Stark: red hair, alluring eyes, skin that tastes like lemon-flavored lotion. Their first kiss was a drunken smashing of teeth and warm lips more than anything else, the taste of vodka in her breath, and her heartbeat pressed onto his. 

It happens at one of those evening charity galas Rhaenys endlessly throws. He is surprised to see her, and she says she is in King’s Landing doing her thesis. Graduate school. He tells her she looks stunning, and she grants him a smile. (Later, in his apartment, in between heady kisses, he tells her he can’t sleep with her when they’ve both had a drink. She says, stop being so fucking honorable, and tugs his cock free and sucks all the hesitation out of him. He is only a man, after all. And she has the mouth of a fucking angel. Or a devil. Sent from hell to ruin his life.)

The invitation is the ugliest thing he’s ever seen in his entire life.

**———————**

Three days after the first fuck, she showers in the bathroom when her phone rings on the bed five inches from you, a notification flashing at the screen. A text from Hardyng:  _ baby please talk to me.  _ You ignore it and head to the shower, an ugly sensation in your throat, stripping off your clothes and carelessly tossing them on the floor. You take her against the wall, swallow her yelp of surprise, and the hot water turns lukewarm to downright freezing, yet you thrust into her all throughout, sucking her neck, drowning yourself in her moans of delight. You whisper to her neck,  _ wrap your legs around my waist, sweetheart,  _ and fuck her harder, like an animal trying your best to lay a claim, mark yourself onto her, inside her. 

That night, you take her to a drive-in theater, an actual date, and you end up making out in the trunk of your car, not giving a shit about the movie, it’s probably horrible, anyway, compared to this, and an old woman in her fifties interrupts, chastising,  _ this is a family establishment!  _ Sansa giggles and hides her face on your chest, and then apologizes to the woman because the manners instilled into her as a young child are instinctual as breathing. And you think, how fucking adorable.

**———————**

He nearly blanches when he sees her in the coffee shop one block away from his apartment. A grey scarf around her neck, cheeks flushed from the cold, red hair in her usual braids — for a second, he thinks of quickly removing himself from the shop before she notices his presence, but the universe is against him, and not a moment later she is walking towards him, her hand holding a cup of hot coffee. He knows it is a single shot caramel macchiato, with an extra sprinkle of cinnamon at the top. 

She smiles at him, like she always did, but it’s tentative, and tiny, and he hates that his heart still faintly stutters. 

“Jon.”

He shoves his hand in the pockets of his coat, and clears his throat. “Hey.”

“Theon texted me you were here.”

“Just over a week ago.” 

She tugs her hair. She probably doesn’t realize she’s doing it, but he does. He’s aware of everything she does.“You could have called.”

“Was a little busy.” 

“Oh. Me too. I mean, with the wedding, and all.”

He stiffens. Every atom in his body feels like it’s disintegrating. “Yeah. Um. Listen. I have to go.” He turns his feet like his house is on fire, and there’s the tiniest glint of satisfaction when he hears her say,  _ wait _ ! And he freezes on his tracks like he’s glued on the floor. His lungs freeze, too. 

“I sent you an invitation. You can come, if you want. But it’s fine if you don’t. You always hated family events,” she says. 

He hates her, he thinks. He hates her hold on him, the way he’s yapping like a puppy for the barest amount of her attention, tail wagging for a pat, a kiss, a smile. He wants to tell her, that she is young and beautiful and has all the time in the world to find the perfect man for her, that Hardyng is an ass who doesn’t deserve a speck of dust from her, much less her hand in marriage, that he doesn’t want to go to that fucking wedding, that he’d rather choke on his own bile. 

He says nothing for a few seconds, and finally settles with, “Should I bring a date?” His tone as derisive as he could. 

Her composure crumbles for a split second, like she didn’t expect for him to say that, like he’d hurt her.  _ Good,  _ he thinks. He hopes, desperately, although he would never say it, that he’s not the only one miserable in this boat. Months ago, he thought they were in the same boat. When had she jumped, swam across the water farther and farther away from him? Her voice changes, all attempt on friendliness gone. “If you want. I’m sure there is an array of women just waiting for you to grace them with your presence.”

**———————**

You know that sleeping with her is a terrible idea. You run in the same circles, her father is your fucking uncle, for god's sake. But you couldn’t say no to her, either. Who could? She’s Sansa Stark: red hair, blue eyes, the north’s beloved princess. You are your father’s son, and your brother’s brother and you are just as selfish, and like them, you take what you want. She reads a novel next to you in bed, while you watch how her skin looks alabaster in moonlight, how her nose crinkles when she finds something mildly amusing. She turns her head to look at you, her head tangled post-coital, and she asks  _ what are you staring at _ ? You say,  _ there’s an ant on your neck. _ (There’s no ant, you just don’t know how to answer that.)

_ Right _ , she replies, rolling her eyes.  _ You’re not falling in love with me, are you? You know this has to stop once I leave king’s landing. _

_ Please. I don’t fancy being murdered by Robb,  _ you say, snaking a hand around her waist, pulling her closer. Her book falls on the floor and she says,  _ Jon! I was reading.  _ You hum.  _ Am I not entertaining enough for you? What’s it about, anyway?  _ She lets her head lay on your chest as you trace patterns on the soft skin of her hip.  _ About a man,  _ she says.  _ He builds a mansion right across the lake from a married woman’s house. He’s been pining for her all his life and thought that if she’d know just how successful he became, maybe she’d leave her husband for him.  _

_ Sounds like a ponce.  _

_ I think it’s romantic.  _

_ Of course you do.  _

_ Because it is! _

_ Do they get together, then? _

_ For a brief moment,  _ she says. 

_ What happens to them? _

_ He dies.  _

You are silent for a while.  _ Well. That’s depressing.  _

_ Yeah.  _ She yawns.  _ It is.  _

**———————**

He decides to call Rhaenys in the middle of the night, practically burning holes on the carpeted floor with his relentless pacing. 

“Jon?” He hears her yawn on the other side. “This better be good. You’re interrupting my beauty sleep.” 

“Sansa’s getting married.” Saying it, out loud, feels like his own tongue betrayed him. 

“I know. I was the one who told you,” she deadpans.

“No, you don’t understand —”

“I do, actually. Come one, give me a little credit here. I know you had a brief… liaison.” He shuts up. “I’ve always known. I’m the eldest, I make it my business to know what you and Aegon are up to. So what is this about, then? You finally realize you were an idiot to let her fuck off into the arms of a lame fratboy?”

“I—”

“I know you flew back there weeks ago. What have you even been doing? Staring at the ceiling and drinking yourself to death?”

“I’m not—”

“Because you need to get a grip, Jon. If you’re not going to go to the wedding, come back here. Margaery is rather pretty, isn’t she? Woo her. God knows I could use a little help dealing with the Tyrells. And don’t be that asshole and try to ruin the wedding the day before, or worse, during the actual ceremony. Sansa is a lovely girl, she deserves better than that.” 

His chest tightens. “Yeah. I know.”

“Oh, Jon. I’m sorry. It must suck,” she says. Softer this time. 

He lets out a hollow laugh. “It does. A little. Bye, Rhaenys. See you.” He exits the call without waiting for her reply and strides out of his bedroom. There’s a gnawing in his chest and at the bottom of a whiskey bottle, lidocaine.

**———————**

You think Doctor Who is ridiculous but she loves it and so you watch reruns with her on the couch, your head on her lap, her fingers in your hair. She says she’s always liked your curls, that it’s unfair that it’s effortlessly pretty while she has to do a great amount of work to make her hair presentable. You chuckle, and you tell her to keep doing that because it feels heavenly. 

_ What do you think you were doing a thousand years ago? _ She asks.

_ Hmm. Probably farming.  _

_ Farming?  _ Her laughter is music to his ears.  _ Why?  _

_ That’s what they were doing a thousand years ago. _

_ I don’t think you were a poor farmer.  _ She says. 

_ Imagine the horror.  _

_ You were probably a swordsman. A knight.  _

_ I like that. And you most definitely were a princess. Or at least a highborn lady, with a hundred suitors coming and going out of Winterfell.  _

_ You think I’d be in Winterfell a thousand years ago?  _

_ Where else would you be.  _

_ I suppose so. I probably wouldn’t survive a day as a medieval peasant.  _

_ You’d survive if you were. You’re stronger than you look.  _

She pinches your arm and you yelp a little.  _ I am, aren’t I?  _

In retaliation, you get up and she laughs as you swerve them so she’s pressed under you. Her breathing goes faster, and her fingers return to your hair. 

_ Would you have been my knight?  _

_ I think I would have fought an army for you. I could do it now, even. I’m good with my sword, as you know.  _

She rolls her eyes.  _ You’re incorrigible. And a horrible flirt.  _

You trail kisses down her neck.  _ Who says I’m lying. I’d do anything for you, Sansa.  _

**———————**

It’s 2:31 am and on impulse, he takes a ten-minute drive to Winterfell. It looks the same — tall, imposing, grey. He doesn’t really know what he’s doing, he thinks he might be losing his mind, but he stares at the ‘call’ button for 15 minutes straight before tapping on the green button. It rings, once, twice, thrice, before she answers. 

“Hello?”

He taps on the red button to end the call and he wants to shake himself. He’s a fucking idiot. Not three seconds later, there’s an incoming call, and numbly he accepts it. 

She sounds annoyed. “What’s going on with you? It’s  _ 2 AM. _ ”

“Did I wake you?” he says coolly. Like it’s just another booty call. 

“No, I was still up. What is it, Jon?”

“Nothing. Should I have had a reason?”

“I— where is this all coming from?”

“I’m outside the gates.”

“What? Right now? Are you insane?” she hisses. 

“Yes. Probably.” That’s exactly it. 

She heaves a sigh. “Just. Come inside. It’s freezing.”

He waves past the guard, and drives all the way to the Great Keep. He stands by the door for a few minutes before it swings open and. Yeah. There she is. 

“What are you doing here, Jon? Are you — Are you drunk?”

“Don’t marry him.”

“What?” 

“Don’t marry him,” he repeats. 

She stares at him, disbelief and outrage on her face. “Don’t do this. Not right now.”

“Sansa —”

“You’re an asshole, you know that?” she says thickly.

He quiets.

“I waited for you. Almost my entire life. Remember my high school dance? You said you’d come and be my date. You didn’t. You have no idea how much I cried. You never — you never saw me as anything more than Robb’s sister until that night we  _ slept _ together. And even then, I was just another notch on your bedpost,” she swallows. “I waited for you. To tell me to stay. To fight for what we had, and you — you didn’t. You just stood there like you always did.”

“Sansa —”

“No, it’s my turn to talk,” she snaps, angrily wiping a tear. “You’re acting like a spoiled little boy throwing a tantrum because someone stole your favorite toy. At least Harry  _ likes  _ me. At least I could figure him out. I’m marrying him in two weeks, Jon.  _ Two weeks. _ ”

Nausea clings at his throat, blocking his airways. His mouth opens, but words fail to come out. He swallows hard instead. He averts his eyes down to the ground. It hurt to look at her. 

“I do like you,” he says quietly. 

She laughs and it rings in his ears. “Not enough.”

“He’s an ass, Sansa. You deserve better than him, someone—” 

“Someone like you?” she scoffs. 

“I— Yes. Why not,” and he’s desperate now, and he couldn’t give a shit just how pathetic he sounds. 

“You can’t. You cannot be fucking serious, Jon.”

“I am. I am serious. I’ve never been more serious in my entire life. Can you see this?” He raises a hand, and it’s trembling. “I’m fucking shaking. I’ve never been more fucking nervous and pathetic, and I think about you, all the fucking time! When I see a movie, I wonder whether you’d like it. When I go to sleep, it’s your face I see! It’s been months, I know that, but it’s also been months of torture to me, and I miss you desperately, and I shouldn’t have let you go, and I—” 

“You what,” she repeats numbly.

“I’m in love with you.” This is not quite what he planned when he put on his coat and drove all the way here, in fact, he had no plan at all, but it’s there now in the open, and he might as well just lay all the other cards out. “I’ve never felt like this before, not with anyone else, and I was scared. I’m sorry. I don’t have any other excuse other than me being a coward. But I am. I really am quite in love with you, and I’ll do anything you want me to do, be anything you want me to be, I’ll give you the world, even if you don’t need it, I just. Please. Consider.”

Silence falls over them. It only registers to him now how frigid the air is, and it seeps into his bones. 

“You should go.”

He looks at her for a while, even though it hurts, and he deserves it, he knows. There’s nothing more to say. So he nods, heads over his car, and leaves. 

**———————**

The first time you realize that you have feelings for her deeper than the surface, she’s baking cupcakes and there’s flour on her nose. You are having a bad day, and work has been hell lately, but then you look at her, and something tugs inside of you, and you feel  _ lighter, _ somehow. Whatever that means. 

You kiss her cheek and she shrieks when you try to lick the batter.

The night before her flight to White Harbor, she whispers your name and falls asleep tucked in your chest and you remember how she’s gone the next morning and nothing in your bed, or your apartment could have proven otherwise. 

Her side of the bed still smells like her — a mixture of vanilla and lemons — and you pinch your nose and will yourself to fall back to sleep. 

**———————**

He flies back to King’s Landing and stays at the Red Keep for a few days. Rhaenys is convinced he might jump off a tower any second and she wouldn’t let him out of her sight. He feels defeated, mostly. And hollow, like there’s an emptiness in his chest he couldn't ever fill. He even spends time with  _ Aegon,  _ as annoying as he is, and they treat him kind of like he’s fragile and when he couldn’t take it anymore he goes to his apartment in the city. 

He is taken aback as soon as he opens the door. She’s  _ there _ , sitting on his couch, looking like she’s been waiting for him for hours. She looks so beautiful it pains him. He pinches himself, convinced he’s dreaming again like a lovesick fool. He opens his mouth and closes it again, choosing to close the door instead, gently, as if any abrupt sound could make her disappear at any moment. 

“Don’t you have a wedding in three days?” he sounds like he’s out of breath, and he’s seven again and battling an asthma attack. 

“Two days, actually.”

“Not like I was counting,” he mutters. His heart hammers in his chest, and there’s an inkling of hope there, but he shoves it all back in. Hope is dangerous. “Why are you here?”

She doesn’t answer, only comes in closer and takes his hand into hers. It renders him completely weak, and his entire world dissolves until it’s just her, just  _ her, _ and she — 

She smiles at him.

He smiles back.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> i dont know what im doing please leave a review or something lol


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